This promises to be a very exciting day, serving many facets of the Grace United Methodist Church community. We’ll start in the afternoon with a presentation about the issues, drawing from the themes of the book. Then, we’ll march — to the steps of the Pennsylvania State Capitol building to demonstrate and advocate for positive change in our immigration system.

We’ll return for a community supper at the Church. And top the day off with a facilitated discussion with the Grace Church Book Club.

Can’t wait!

Can’t wait for this Zoom event with students and faculty of this progressive institution of higher education!

A community of outreach, ministering to the victims of injustice, the many ministries at St. Charles feed and nurture each other as well as the world around us. Whether in celebrating Mass, serving at soup kitchens, comforting the grieving, ministering to the sick, building homes, studying scripture, preparing for the sacraments, forming children and adults in faith, or welcoming the newcomer, all are welcome in the St. Charles Community. Including me!

This evening, we will break bread together, speak of immigration issues together, read fro Crossing the Line, and pray for a more compassionate future for our nation.

I am so grateful to be presenting, learning, and serving by the side of my soul-sister and story collaborator (Chapter 11: Modern Problems, Medieval Solutions), Dora Rodriguez, on behalf of her community at Salvavision. This Tucson, AZ-based non-profit organization provides aid and support to asylum seekers and those who have been deported thanks to the unwavering support of local partners. The Salvasion community provides essential services such as immediate housing, medical care, legal assistance, and more. Their comprehensive approach helps prevent homelessness, facilitates successful community integration, and fosters stability for those in need.

Everything Dora touches turns to gold. I’m grateful to be counted as a member of her vast network of kindness and heartfelt care.

The twin missions are the right to migrate with dignity. The respective actions are humanitarian aid and holistic accompaniment through immersive experiences because education is all about the encounter. The parallel advocacy efforts at the US-Mexico border in favor of policies that advance humane, just, and workable migration in the region. These objectives bridge the goals of the Kino Border Initiative and the Eloy Visitation & Accompaniment program.

Add to that my day with Kino Teens at the Regis High School in New York, and we’re looking at layer upon layer of connection that I cannot wait to tie in a beautiful bow at this fundraiser for the KBI and EVA communities.

Come one. Come all. See you at St Mark’s Church. Doors open at 5:00 pm.

Join me and my hosts of the Eloy Visitation & Accompaniment Program for a day of human connection with peace-seeking people incarcerated in one of the worst ICE prisons — though they are all bad — in the nation with the highest per capita population of people locked up for the non-crime of asking for protection from persecution.

Lisa Kiser, Clinical Associate Professor, Advanced Nursing Practice and Science Division at the University of Arizona College of Nursing, will have me speak to her Health Equity Class, proving that the issue of immigration injustice fans out in connection with myriad other human and social areas.

Community Only.

Can’t wait to meet the good folks of Sierra Vista Arizona for a healthy back and forth on the issues of immigration most affecting them. My host and organizer for this event is the Madrean Archipelago Wildlife Center, which advocates for freedom of movement for ALL creatures, not just people. We sometimes forget that in putting up walls against people, animals are also thwarted from migrating to find food, water, mates, family. As a result, our barriers are causing various forms of ecocide as well.

Open to the Public

I’m so excited for this day of learning and networking with the good, powerful folks at Amnesty International. If you’re there, please come introduce yourself!

The Methodist Diakonas of Women in Faith will spend a week with Deaconess Cindy Johnson Andrade at La Posada Providencia to learn about migration and visit organizations that work with people in motion in the Rio Grande Valley. They will be reading Crossing the Line, says Cindy, “as a great insight into the work and understanding of migration in our context.”

We will meet to discuss the book by Zoom to learn from each other. It promises to be a wonderfully international group:

• three diakonas from Brazil

• three from Canada

• three from the Caribbean, and

• two from US

in addition to the staff of La Posada. I wish I could be there with them in San Benito. But Zoom works too!

So excited to be in conversation with Professor of Anthropology and Director for Inter-American Border Studies Josiah Heyman in this campus-wide book presentation at the University of Texas, El Paso. I’m particularly excited to learn from my host and his colleagues, whose scholarship and voices are heard loud and clear in Part III of CROSSING THE LINE!

Registration details to follow.

CALLING ALL SPOKEN WORD ARTISTS — except me as I will not be rapping — but I’m super pysched to be engaging with those who do, and maybe I’ll even give it a try!!

Who knows, spoke word today… TedTalk tomorrow?

Trinity Presbyterian Church in Denton is an eclectic mix of progressive Christians who are welcoming, inclusive, open and diverse.  The community strives to engage in acts of compassion, advocacy and reconciliation, and to heal brokenness affecting individuals, families, and society.  

Trinity welcomes you!  All are welcome!

We’ll be taking a deep dive into more effective messaging around immigration to help these warriors for democracy with their GOTV efforts this fall. Join us!!

Open to the public!

Sponsored by Eagle Dreamers, a youth organization at the University of North Texas whose mission is to provide a supportive environment for our undocumented community at the University, this event is Not To Be Missed!

Open to All! Find us at the Student Union.

Meet us at Tommy’s Hamburger Grill & Patio to talk about all the Good Trouble we’re getting into over immigration.

Open to all!

Members of Arlington Residents for Inclusion invite you to a hosted event dedicated to issues of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. LOVE!

Sponsored by the Philosophy Club, join this university-wide lecture about immigration issue as presented CROSSING THE LINE.

Open to the public.

The Border Community Alliance is bridging the border and fostering community through education, collaboration and cultural exchange. The community believes in social investment to elevate a strong sense of international community. Its membership seeks to listen and learn from each other, rather than presume we know it all. They respect the cultures and traditions of both Mexico and the United States and advocate for wider public knowledge; value working together with like-minded organizations and individuals on both sides of the border; and welcome participation in all their programs regardless of one’s viewpoint on divisive issues. Which is why I am honored and humbled to be among the “cutting-edge authors” invited to engage the Alliance’s Borderlands Literature and Film Circle.

Want to join? It will be on Zoom, 10:00-11:30 Mountain Time (12-1:30 ET). Click here to sign up!

Sarah joins the Board of Trustees and membership of the Greater Astoria Historical Society, with the support of the Astoria Bookshop, to discuss Crossing the Line with a lens trained on October anniversaries in immigration matters: The Hart-Celler Act, Operation Gatekeeper, and the mass deportation flights to Cameroon documented in the book.

This event will be by Zoom. Care to join? Contact me. I’ll get you connected to the GAHS!

Sponsored by the Criminal Justice Club, join this university-wide lecture about immigration issues as presented in CROSSING THE LINE. 

Open to the public.

Esteemed hosts from the Dallas Peace & Justice Center have teamed up with the community of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Oak Cliff to co-sponsor a book talk and author meet and greet with me, as well as local pro-immigration forces to discuss the biggest elephant in the 2024 presidential campaign: immigration. We’ll start with a gathering of wine and nibbles, and commence our facilitated conversation at 7 pm.

Open to the public.

A church of extraordinary hospitality and extravagant worship, Broadway Baptist Church of Fort Worth, Texas, was proudly kicked out of the  Southern Baptist Conference for being “too welcoming.” BB is an inclusive and affirming church with a book study group 230-members strong. And they want to study CROSSING THE LINE!

We kick off the book study with an in-person event at the church after services on Sunday, October 6!

But everyone from the public is welcome.

Word Up welcomes human rights activist Sarah Towle to celebrate her new book "Crossing the Line: Finding America in the Borderlands" about the realities at the United States border and its real effects on human lives, and winner of the Gold Award from the Nonfiction Book Association.

“Simultaneously a searing indictment of inhumane immigration policies and a moving testament to the resilience of the human spirit, Sarah Towle’s Crossing the Line is public-interest storytelling at its finest. A brilliant, engaging, and essential read for anyone seeking a true understanding of America’s borderlands.” —Toluse Olorunnipa, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice

This event is a $5 suggested donation ticket with 50 max attendees.

Click the image to register in advance.

Author talk and community presentation in-conversation with the Reunite Migrant Families and Grannies Respond / Abuelas Responden teams.

Follow the QR code to register or click here.